Romance is Dead

Let me tell you a love story.

Once upon a time, there existed a very, very sad ghost. Well, to be fair, being dead doesn’t leave much room for happiness. Most humans - the living ones - don’t even remotely sense the presence of ghosts. The life of the ghost can be a harrowing, lonely existence as a result. But overall, it makes life (if you can even call it a “life”) easier and unperturbed by agonizing camaraderie. 

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Modern horror movies tend to emphasize the version of the “ghost” that is vengeful and  bound to the area where they lived before Death plucked them from the earth like a child would pluck a flower from an unsuspecting field. The action is inherently innocent - yet it commits the sin of murder nonetheless. Anyways, real ghosts can go wherever their heart desires. They can also be spiteful beings, but not everyone is. It’s a little unfair to paint ghosts in such an antagonistic light. The reality is that ghosts are simply human souls without physical bodies. 

“Reality” is such a funny word. What people fail to realize is that reality works with no regard for how it is conceptualized, but fantasy operates purely on its conceptualized principles. That is the difference between fantasy and reality. Fantasy is so easily contained within imaginary borders. Reality is distinct and has a mind of its own.

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The attic was cramped and dusty, but the sad ghost thought that it was perfect. To the sad ghost, the attic was a humble, quaint, and comfortable place to reside in. He always felt at ease when he entered the attic; however, to satisfy his adventurous spirit, the sad ghost often ventured out into the world - I knew this since he was my roommate - to see the greatest sights and hear the greatest sounds. But no matter how far or how long he would travel, he would always oscillate back to the attic like a pendulum on its downswing. 

I was never bothered by his absence because I actually preferred it over his company. The sad ghost was always quite talkative, which annoyed me greatly, and he would frequently try to initiate conversation. That was foolish of him. I’ve never spoken a word to him, and I don’t intend to. 

But one thing he said on a fine August morning piqued my interest.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed. “There’s a moving truck outside. I think it’s a family.” I furrowed my brow and came out from my abode: a large, brown cardboard box with a tiny peephole in the side. I liked staying inside my box, which was nicely tucked into a dark corner of the room, to avoid interacting with the sad ghost. Sometimes, I looked through the hole out of curiosity and to check if he was in the attic. It may sound pitiful, but there’s not much else to do when you’re dead. The world doesn’t get any prettier, people don’t get any friendlier, and life doesn’t get any happier.

I emerged from my box and floated over to the window to peer outside. A handful of workers, all in gray uniform, were carrying furniture inside the house like soldier ants. I also noticed a middle-aged man and woman helping them out. Carrying the smaller packages was a girl with freckled cheeks and a crooked smile, presumably their daughter. 

“Wow,” the sad ghost said. “She’s beautiful.” I glanced over at his face and saw how his eyes lingered on her form. I felt a deep sense of disgust begin to boil inside of me, so I retreated to my box. He remained at the window, watching the perfect little nuclear family settle into my home. 

“This house has been empty for so long,” he commented absently. “Hopefully it’ll feel less lonely around here.” I scoffed internally. No one had wanted to live in the same house where someone had committed suicide in the master bedroom two years ago. (Sorry, I guess.) It’s funny how such a small occurrence can cause people to avoid quality real estate like it’s the plague. 

The girl was strange. I listened to the family’s discourses closely through the floorboards, which were surprisingly thin. The sad ghost listened as well, but mostly when the girl spoke. For some reason, the girl insisted on living in the attic. I take it that she was probably much like me in that she liked her privacy, and living in the attic would’ve been a good way to isolate herself from her family. Her parents were understandably opposed to her desire to live in the attic, but the girl was annoyingly persistent. I’m convinced that part of her determination was fueled by teenage rebellion. If only she could set her hormones aside and live in one of the brighter, more spacious bedrooms like a normal human being, I wouldn’t have had to witness the unsightly blooming of a young romance.

In exchange for letting her live in the stuffy attic, the girl’s parents would thoroughly clean and furnish the space before letting her step foot in the attic. However, the girl made her parents promise not to touch any of the items left by the previous residents because she wanted to explore the contents and hopefully find something valuable. The girl’s parents reluctantly compromised with her again, even though they would’ve preferred to throw everything in the attic away. I was just happy that I could at least keep my box for a little while longer. 

The parents spent the evening cleaning every inch of the attic and making sure it was spotless enough for their precious child. I rolled my eyes every now and then as I watched them, even though I knew that they couldn’t see. Meanwhile, the sad ghost sat on the girl’s to-be bed and watched her parents quietly. He was tapping his foot and fidgeting a lot. I was getting anxious just by looking at him. 

“Gosh,” he said. “Things are progressing pretty fast. She’s already moving in with me and I haven’t even asked her out on a date yet!” I didn’t laugh. The sad ghost often made such sad attempts at being humorous. It was honestly painful to deal with.

Once the girl’s parents were satisfied with the cleanliness of the attic, they retreated to the kitchen for a nice, hearty family dinner. My family never ate dinner together because my mother was a horrible drunk and my father probably wasn’t even at home anyways. Once their dinner was over, the girl ran up the stairs with such excitement that the floorboards shook slightly with each of her enthusiastic steps. As soon as she emerged, she stopped abruptly and made a soft noise that was somewhere between a gasp and a yelp. She was staring right at the sad ghost, who stared back at her with the same amount of shock. For a moment that seemed to last an eternity, they stared at each other in silence with eyes as big as saucers. 

“Can you… see me?” asked the sad ghost. The girl blinked, and then raised an eyebrow.

“What are you talking about?” she growled. “Of course I can! Are you here to rob my house? ‘Cause if so, you’re doing a terrible job!” The sad ghost laughed at the girl, who looked at him with a bewildered expression. 

“I’m not here to rob you,” he said. “I live here. I’m a ghost.” The girl looked even more confused. I can’t say I find it hard to blame her. She opened her mouth, probably to scream for her parents’ help, but before she could get the chance, the sad ghost floated two feet off the ground. She stood where she was, completely frozen with shock, just staring at his floating figure. 

“See?” the sad ghost chuckled. “I’m dead.” The girl approached him slowly, still trying to process the image of him defying gravity with ease. 

“Are you here to haunt me?” she squeaked.

“No,” he chuckled. “I’d much rather get to know you.”

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The days that followed that interaction were more miserable than the days that I spent living with the sad ghost alone. The sad ghost and the girl talked with ease about anything and everything for hours into the early morning until the sun glistened on the delicate edge of the horizon. The girl’s parents thought that the amount of time the girl spent in her room was suspicious and unhealthy, so they tried to force her to attend therapy. I shook my head in disapproval when I heard that she’d been forced to see a shrink, who determined after a month of weekly sessions that nothing was wrong with her. I’ve been to therapy too, and all it’s good for is wasting your money. My mother forced me to seek help from our neighborhood priest as well, because she was convinced that I was falling down the same emotional rabbit hole that she had fallen through after she birthed me. I had to visit my local church and talk about my “feelings” and my “spiritual health” and all that junk twice a week. Mother essentially figured that if therapy couldn’t help me, God would.

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Side note: God does not exist. If he did, he would not be so unnecessarily cruel. To condemn me to eternal existence in the liminal, blank space between life and death is beyond divine punishment. It is an unjustifiable example of human suffering. What kind of god would endorse such meaningless sadism?

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She asked about me once. The girl, I mean. The sad ghost had mentioned that he was not the only ghost in the attic and she was immediately alarmed. He informed her that I resided in the box in the corner of the room, and she was mortified by the idea that I’d been spying on them the whole time. She was a little upset that the sad ghost had not told her sooner, but he explained that he often forgets about my presence because I’d rarely come out of my box or even talked to him. He also added that I would probably never leave the box, and that it was better to leave me to my own devices. Reluctantly, the girl nodded with understanding and decided to forgive him for not letting her know that I was in the room. As her initial panic subsided, she grew curious and began to ask questions about me. She asked about my origin, personality, appearance, etc. Droll things like that.

“I don’t know anything about him,” the sad ghost replied somberly. “But he has a pair of such curious, glowing green eyes.” She looked at him with a puzzled look on her face. 

“Sounds like something out of Shakespeare,” the girl remarked. 

I was impressed with her comment, since it demonstrated that she possessed some literary knowledge. But allow me to make clear that I am not affected by green-eyed jealousy at all. In fact, watching their loving relationship every day repulses me. There is nothing appealing about the throes of love. Not that I would know of, anyway.

Eventually, the girl got more comfortable with the fact that I existed in her room and that I wasn’t going anywhere. Though I think that over time, she had simply learned to erase the idea of my existence from her mind. To be invisible is not a form of humiliation that is shouldered by ghosts alone. I was remarkably invisible in my past life as well. For her to subject me to the same form of torture that I thought I had escaped from made my soul implode with an uncontrollable, fiery anger. Consequently, I considered murdering the girl in her sleep. But I ultimately decided against it because I was afraid that she would become a ghost and stay in the attic with the sad ghost for eternity. Then I would have to move out, and I did not want to. I am not fond of change.

I never got used to the girl. Her presence filled the room with a suffocating atmosphere of love and affection - not to mention the constant exchange of intimacy between the sad ghost and the girl. Every little exchange intensified the deep aching inside of me ever so slightly and made the sad ghost sink deeper into his inescapable sadness. I could tell from his superficial smiles and markedly uplifted demeanor that he was suffering within the confines of his mind just as much as I was.

I think that the most unbearable moments were when the girl would smile. To me, that crooked smile grew more and more wretched with each passing day. But the sad ghost loved that imperfect smile. He would smile back at her, reflecting her happiness tenfold because her happiness was his happiness. So pathetic. That’s not happiness. That’s love. 

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She loved flying almost as much as she loved him. The sad ghost was able to take flight into the borderless sky, as all ghosts are. Since ghosts are able to touch components of the physical world - such as living people - he would take her into his arms and plunge into the dark plumage of the night. She had never felt such an acute sense of freedom in her life. She trusted him so much even when they would soar so high up that she swore she felt the stars brush by her freckled cheeks. As she looked down into the world far below, she relished the adrenaline that pumped vigorously through her veins. She found that she was able to enjoy her fear because she had no reason to believe that any harm would come to her. After all, the girl was surely safe in the arms of her beloved.

I think that any sane person would have taken her high up into the sky and dropped her to be swallowed up by the concrete below. If only the world would split open and swallow them both. 

Every day, they looked incredibly happy. 

Her face was supernaturally radiant, like the most beautiful flower in full bloom. Or like a venus flytrap waiting to lure an insignificant fly into its crooked mouth. 

His face burned with love like the eternal fire that blazes through hell. It burned to such a high degree that his entire being was trapped in a fever-induced dream, the hallucination being love. He thinks that burning is happiness. I also burn, deep inside, and I know better than to mistake such profound sadness for happiness. 

Sadness is the reality of our existence, and it underlies any fantasy of happiness that we try to disguise our true feelings with. The sooner you come to terms with this truth, the sooner you will learn to accept it as I have.